This paper presents the first comprehensive study of the long-run evolution of wealth inequality in Germany. We combine tax data, surveys, national accounts and rich lists to study the distribution of wealth in Germany from 1895 to 2018. We show that the concentration of wealth in the hands of...

Growth and employment in the US have been robust over the past 18 months, and President Trump frequently takes personal credit for these trends. This column explores how the US economy would have evolved without Trump. An analysis shows no difference between the post-election performance of the...

Racial income and wealth gaps in the United States are large and persistent. Recently, central bankers and politicians have put forward the suggestion that monetary policy can be used to reduce these inequalities. We investigate the distributional effects of monetary policy in a unified...

The rise of populism in the past two decades has motivated much work on its drivers, but less is known about its economic and political consequences. This column uses a comprehensive cross-country database on populism dating back to 1900 to offer a historical, long-run perspective. It shows that...

Deutschland steht vor einer neuen Wohnungsfrage. Der anhaltende Boom am Immobilienmarkt spaltet die Gesellschaft in Gewinner und Verlierer. Auf der einen Seite haben die Preissteigerungen seit 2011 deutsche Immobilienbesitzer um etwa 3 Billionen Euro reicher gemacht. Diese Vermögenzuwächse...

Corporate debt levels have risen sharply in advanced and emerging economies before and during the Covid pandemic. Will corporate debt overhang slow down the recovery from the pandemic? This paper studies the aftermath of corporate debt surges in long-run cross country data. History shows that...

This article discusses the economic effects of a potential cut-off of the German economy from Russian energy imports. We show that the effects are likely to be substantial but manageable. In the short run, a stop of Russian energy imports would lead to a GDP decline in range between 0.5% and 3%...

In diesem Artikel werden die wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen eines möglichen Stopps russischer Energieimporte auf die deutsche Wirtschaft diskutiert. Wir zeigen, dass die Auswirkungen wahrscheinlich substanziell, aber handhabbar sein werden. Kurzfristig würde ein Stopp der russischen...

Ein Ende der Gaslieferungen aus Russland ist in letzter Zeit deutlich wahrscheinlicher geworden. Die russischen Liefermengen wurden bereits substantiell reduziert, und die Unsicherheit über künftige Lieferungen und die Versorgungslage im Winter ist groß. In dieser Studie fragen wir, was die...